Table of Contents

Introduction 1 Interpreting death rites 2 Coping with corpses: impurity, fertility and fear 3 Theories of grief 4 Sacrifice, violence and conquest 5 Eastern destiny and death 6 Ancestors cemeteries and local identities 7 Jewish and Islamic destinies 8 Christianity and Offending Death 9 Symbolic death and rebirth 10 Somewhere to die 11 Souls and the presence of the dead 12 Pet and animal death 13 Book, film and building 14 Death, and the birth of religions 15 Secular death and life

About the Author

Douglas Davies is Professor in the Study of Religion and Director of the Centre for Death and Life Studies at Durham University, UK. He is the author of Natural Burial (2012), The Theology of Death (2008) and A Brief History of Death (2004). He is also the editor, along with Lewis Mates, of The Encyclopedia of Cremation (2005). Professor Davies is a Fellow of the British Academy, as well as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and of the Learned Society of Wales.

Reviews

"Professor Douglas Davies' perceptive and thought-provoking book... provides a rich framework in which to consider the perennial questions of the human response to death. From this book, the fruit of wide-ranging research and reading, it is clear that Professor Davies has established himself as one of the leading writers in an increasingly important field." --Geoffrey Rowell, The Tablet

"This updated and much enlarged book contains fascinating information and discussion about the many, varied issues nestling under the heading of 'death studies'. It would make an excellent textbook." --Modern Believing, July 2003